FDIC Provides Ready-to-Go, Age-Appropriate Personal Finance Lessons

The FDIC’s new Money Smart for Young People series features four free age-appropriate curriculums that are designed to promote financial understanding in young people. The FDIC developed these new educational tools as part of ongoing work with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to improve financial decision-making skills among youth. The curriculum makes learning fun for students at every stage of development, from pre-K through age 20.

There are 48 lessons available to educators that can be taught alone or in combination. The series is a free comprehensive curriculum that is structured to cover all grade levels in your school. Grade level-modifications are included with ideas to show you how easily financial education can be integrated into existing academic subjects such as English, mathematics and social studies.

The Educator Guide shows how each lesson aligns to the following education standards and identifies which standards are met:

Financial Literacy Jump$tart Standards

Common Core State Standards, ELA and mathematics

National Standards in Economics by Council for Economic Education

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Teachers are provided with a summary of lessons, objectives and suggested times that are required for each lesson.

All materials needed for each lesson are listed for easy access. The format allows for easy transitions to the lesson plan format used by your district and identifies the location of key terms and standards charts.

A Student Guide is available for grades 3-12 and contains all of the handouts that students need for each lesson. They are clearly outlined in the Table of Contents. Learning is kept simple through real-life applications and examples. Suggestions for optional books or online games/tools that can reinforce student understanding.

The Parent/Caregiver Guide is meant to serve as a connection between the classroom and the home. The guide corresponds to the classroom materials and links activities, resources and conversation starters to financial literacy topics. Organized around themes, the guide corresponds each theme to one or more classroom lessons and these are identified in the materials.

Parents can access parent/caregiver information at http://consumerfinance.gov/parents/. This website helps parents and caregivers find age-appropriate information to help build their children’s financial future.

Teachers can download Money Smart for Young People and view videos that demonstrate how financial education concepts can be taught at http://www.fdic.gov/teachers. The website also offers other educational tools such as Consumer News, FDIC’s quarterly source of practical guidance on how to become a smarter, safer user of financial services.

We Want to Hear from You

The FDIC wants to hear from educators who use the curriculum to determine what worked well and what could be improved. And, the FDIC would like to hear from school superintendents, principals, or other school leaders on how we can support educators in your schools using the curriculum. Please contact Turn on JavaScript!.

More information about Money Smart for Young People and all of our other curriculums can be found on our website at https://FDIC.gov/MoneySmart/. If you would like to order/download any of our products, they are available through our Online Ordering System at https://catalog.fdic.gov/.